Mubarak fired the first shots of the Yom Kippur war

Hosni Mubarak has claimed that he personally fired the first shots in the
surprise attack that launched the Yom Kippur war with Israel in 1973.

Hosni Mubarak photographed before being taken to the court
(AP)

By Inna Lazareva

11:25AM BST 20 Sep 2013

In newly released testimony, former Egyptian president said he was at the forefront of the battle.

The ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who was the Air Force commander in 1973, said he personally flew a fighter jet and attacked an Israeli communications base. The attack took place six minutes before the major surprise assault by the Egyptian and Syrian armies began.

The former President said his role was completely secret, known to only three other people, including former President Anwar Sadat. Five years after the war, Sadat signed the peace treaty with Israel which still remains to this day.

Mubarak’s comments, released on Wednesday, were made towards the end of his time in prison before his release in late August 2013.

In Israel, Prime Minister Golda Meir’s account of the clandestine war warning by Jordan’s King Hussein in 1973 is still deemed too harmful to be released by the country’s censors.

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Last week, Meir’s testimony was declassified for the first time in 40 years, but notably omitted all mention of her pivotal meeting in Tel Aviv with Jordan’s monarch in which he warned of war on two fronts.

But according to Mubarak’s recording, it was Palestinian Authority chief Yasser Arafat, and not King Hussein, who had warned the Israelis of the attack - a message which Israel had largely ignored.

Another element of the war that still remains unknown is exactly how close Israel came to deploying nuclear weapons against its enemies.

Mubarak’s comments, made before his release in August 2013, seem geared to bolstering his image in Egypt as a leader who stood up to both Israel and the United States. A previous transcript of a recording published in Egypt in June states that Mubarak challenged US President Barack Obama, who pressed him to give up power during the 2011 uprisings.

“I do not take orders from you, and not from anyone, as far as the people of Egypt are concerned”, Mubarak allegedly told Obama.

The former president is now standing trial on charges linked to the killings of some 900 protesters in the 2011 uprising.

The events of the 1973 war are a collective trauma in the Israeli national psyche. Egypt and Syria sprung a surprise attack on the Day of Atonement - a day in the Jewish calendar when most people are fasting for 24 hours, with no television or radio communications.

At 2pm on 6th October, over 200 Egyptian war planes penetrated the Israeli airspace, attacking and destroying airbases, command and control centres, artillery positions, radar installations and missile battery bases.

“We are heading for a catastrophe”, the eye patch-wearing Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Dayan is said to have told his Prime Minister. Israel was momentarily devastated, but managed to recover and regain its positions, thanks in part to US assistance.